Forests sustain and protect us in a myriad of ways. They absorb carbon dioxide and provide us with oxygen, they harbour more than three quarters of terrestrial biodiversity, and they support the livelihoods of millions of people worldwide.

But the world has lost 420 million hectares of forest since 1990. That's an area bigger than India. Given looming environmental crises—including climate change and biodiversity loss—the need to protect these vital ecosystems has gained significant prominence in political agendas.

This report outlines and compares various policy measures that Costa Rica, Gabon, Indonesia, Peru, and Rwanda have put in place to address deforestation and explores the role of voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) in complementing them.

The report provides a detailed analysis of the successes and challenges each country has encountered in their attempts to reduce deforestation and improve forest conservation. From these experiences, it distils seven common findings to help guide governments in the Global South seeking to embark on similar journeys.

In summary, governments tend to have more success at preserving and restoring forests if they

• use a combination of measures tailored to the local context
• target areas that are at high risk of deforestation
• recognize the true economic and environmental value of forests
• provide support to enable producers and forestry operators to comply with the measures
• engage with multiple actors and mobilize funds from both the public and private sector
• leverage VSSs to complement and support policy measures
• use both physical and digital monitoring to measure results and flag issues early

The analyzed environmental trends need to inform decision making and improve citizen engagement in natural resource management and environmental protection. This report thus aims to connect actions creating drivers and pressures influencing the state of the environment and relevant responses to address environmental challenges.

Our approach uses the Drivers– Pressures–State–Impacts–Responses (DPSIR) framework to draw connections between the state of the environment and the drivers and pressures on the environment. The framework brings together five critical elements of development in a connected framework to integrate the causes of environmental degradation (as well as environmental improvements) into a chain of causes and consequences. The DPSIR framework provides a suitable model for describing the interaction between human activities and the environment.

Based on the application of the DPSIR framework, the NSoER team, with the participation of stakeholders, identified the specific drivers, pressures, and components of the environment, such as atmospheric air, water resources, land, and specific ecosystems.

This reader's guide provides an overview of the Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement. It describes the rules and legal provisions that have been agreed and succinctly explains what the disciplines require. It has been designed to provide all interested stakeholders with a short and clear summary of the treaty.

This material has been funded by the UK Government Centres of Expertise as part of UK International Development; however, the views expressed do not necessarily reflect the British government's official policies. The Umbrella Grant is a project of the Trade and Investment Advocacy Fund (TAF2+) and is implemented by the International Institute for Sustainable Development.

What we manage to obscure a little better is that, despite all the incredible scientific discoveries that go down at the world’s freshwater laboratory, we also harbour some artistic flourishes, theatrical leanings, and even full-on musical talents.

This year's annual report is a celebration of all things creative at the world's freshwater laboratory, from the science to music, photography and theatre.

As people worldwide grapple with the effects of rising temperatures, companies are under increasing legal, financial, and societal pressure to cut their emissions. Voluntary standards and initiatives for carbon management (VSICMs) are voluntary measures that organizations can use to develop, report, register, or certify certain activities or processes related to climate action.

VSICMs have emerged and developed rapidly in the past 30 years in response to the escalating climate emergency. They offer companies step-by-step methods and guidance to help them initiate or increase the ambition of their climate change mitigation strategies.

Non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and private sector actors have established VSICMs at a faster rate and with more flexibility than legally binding initiatives. This has led to the co-existence of—and competition among—multiple standards and initiatives. They often have overlapping and complementary goals but different scopes and functions, creating a complex landscape.

Voluntary Standards and Initiatives for Carbon Management: Navigating the Landscape helps private sector actors understand the different types of VSICMs and how they can help them to advance their carbon management practices.

The report also outlines various challenges that have arisen due to the organic evolution of VSICMs and highlights the need for a clear governance framework to promote coordination and alignment across initiatives and enhance the credibility of voluntary efforts.

The accompanying report, State of Sustainability Initiatives Review: Standards and Carbon Neutrality, and appendix delve further into carbon neutrality standards. They compare nine standards of this type using the State of Sustainability Initiatives’ CARE methodology, which uses a comprehensive list of indicators to benchmark standards according to their coverage, assurance, responsiveness, and engagement.

This technical report offers contextual information, tools, and recommendations to help plan, design, and implement nature-based solutions (NbS) for adaptation that advance gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) while enhancing resilience, biodiversity, and ecosystem integrity.

It contributes to the nascent field of gender-responsive and inclusive NbS by providing practitioners working on NbS programming with guidance on how to consider gender and other intersecting identity factors that are grounded in a human rights-based approach at each stage of their NbS projects. Looking beyond NbS projects, applying a GESI lens should become “business as usual” within all facets of climate adaptation and resilience planning, processes, and practices.

This report was developed through a review of relevant literature, case studies, and discussions with experts. It is part of a compendium of resources developed by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) for the Nature for Climate Adaptation Initiative (NCAI), which is supported by Global Affairs Canada. The resources include an introductory guidance note that provides an overview of basic terminology and concepts behind NbS for adaptation and a report that provides guidance on enhancing biodiversity co-benefits from implementing NbS for adaptation (along with two case studies).

While nature-based solutions (NbS) for adaptation projects are increasingly being promoted and implemented, there is still little understanding of how such projects can achieve biodiversity co-benefits—multiple wins for both biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Protecting and supporting biodiversity and ecosystems is important to delivering critical ecosystem services that help communities adapt to climate change and sustain their livelihoods, such as conserving wetlands to absorb floodwaters.

To address the gap in evidence, these two case studies have been developed as a supplement to the Nature for Climate Adaptation Initiative report Enhancing Biodiversity Co-Benefits From Nature-based Solutions on planning, designing, and implementing NbS for climate change adaptation that enhances biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. 

The first case study describes how civil society organizations protect and restore mangroves to strengthen coastal resilience to climate change in Grenada. The second case study examines the role of biological corridors in urban areas in Costa Rica to enhance biodiversity while contributing to the development of sustainable cities and a higher quality of life.

Each case study includes an overview of the local context and climate risks, how the project adapted to climate change and integrated biodiversity in practice, and lessons learned. The case studies were developed through interviews with project implementers and by reviewing relevant reports and documents.

This report is part of a compendium of resources developed by the IISD for the Nature for Climate Adaptation Initiative (NCAI), which is supported by Global Affairs Canada.

Tea is consumed more than any other drink in the world, excluding water. Originally from China, it spread across trade routes over centuries to become the USD 9.5 billion industry it is today.

But behind this popular beverage are 13 million people working hard to grow, pluck, and process tea leaves into the neat packages we find in the supermarket. Two thirds of those people are smallholder farmers in developing countries. They face the formidable challenge of producing an affordable, quality, and more sustainable product in a highly competitive market and under increasingly harsh and unpredictable weather conditions.

In some tea-producing countries, smallholder farmers make no profit at all, as their total production costs can exceed their earnings. On top of bearing all the risks related to extreme weather changes and variations in the cost and availability of crucial inputs like fertilizers, they are also most affected by low prices and volatility in the tea sector.

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSSs) have been working to address sustainability challenges in the tea sector for 30 years. Many focus on building climate resilience, for example by encouraging farmers to use techniques that help them cope with periods of drought or that maintain soil fertility to improve yields and quality. Some also seek to improve the prices and incomes of smallholder farmers.

VSS-compliant tea now represents at least a quarter of total global production. However, evidence of VSSs’ impact on farmers’ incomes is limited and tends to be very context specific. It is not clear if minimum prices, premiums, and other differentials really make a difference to tea farmers’ livelihoods—or even make up for the costs of certification. They certainly will not if VSS-compliant tea is sold as conventional, which estimates suggest happens 90% of the time.

There is an urgent need to develop new approaches for recognizing the social and environmental costs of conventional tea production so that farmers can be adequately rewarded for using more sustainable practices. Our report provides recommendations for how governments, private sector actors, and standard-setting bodies can better support smallholder farmers and make tea production fairer and more sustainable.

Vertical integration for climate change adaptation is the process of creating intentional and strategic linkages between national and sub-national governance levels in the planning, implementation, and monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) stages. Sub-national-level governments and local actors are already taking action to adapt to the climate change impacts being felt by communities. Local-level adaptation needs to be carefully linked to and supported by national-level adaptation planning to channel resources to the people, places, and systems that need them most.

The national adaptation plan (NAP) process presents a critically important opportunity to scale up effective, inclusive adaptation. By building strategic and intentional links with sub-national adaptation planning and implementation through vertical integration, the NAP process can support climate change adaptation priorities so that they reflect local realities, channel resources to sub-national actors and actions, and ensure that sub-national adaptation efforts are captured when progress is tracked and reported.

This synthesis report presents an analysis of how countries are advancing vertical integration in NAP processes. The findings are based on data collected through a review of NAP documents submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's NAP Central as of July 2023. The recommendations are complemented by information gathered during the NAP Global Network Secretariat's engagement with countries' NAP teams.

The climate science is clear that there should be no new natural gas project developments, including in Mozambique, if the world is to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Nevertheless, on a purely social and economic basis, there are significant risks that undermine the contribution LNG is expected to make to the Mozambique economy. Most of the proposed financial benefits to Mozambique rely on robust international demand for LNG in the late 2030s and 2040s, which is looking increasingly unlikely. At this juncture, as the global energy transition away from fossil fuels gathers pace, more sustainable projects should be favoured over further investment in LNG.